Aragon. Eluard. Vercors

This collection brings together texts by three writers emblematic of the clandestine Éditions de Minuit and of literary Resistance: Aragon, Éluard and Vercors. The first two were members of the Communist Party; the third, a fellow traveler and co-founder of Éditions de Minuit, still effectively directed the house; all three were members of the Comité national des écrivains.

The preface is by Emmanuel d’Astier de La Vigerie, founder of the Libération-Sud movement, former Commissioner of the Interior of Free France, a Companion of the Liberation close to the Communists, writing in his capacity as deputy, elected on 2 June to the Second Constituent National Assembly.

The printing was completed on 6 July 1946, just days before the “Journées européennes de la résistance” held in Paris under the nominal auspices of a by then largely dormant Conseil national de la résistance, its program having been mostly implemented since autumn 1944, though the most committed figures on the left wished to preserve its spirit.

The celebrations are marked by national unity, with Aragon’s “Comptine du Quai aux fleurs,” which brings together “Au romarin l’églantine / La marguerite au muguet”; by internationalism, with Éluard’s “Athena,” paying tribute to the Greek people and Greek partisans as civil war worsened in the Hellenic peninsula; and by remembrance, with Vercors’s short story “Désespoir et mort,” following the two poems.

Described as “rare” by Vignes, this collection is, in all likelihood, the last publication issued under the name of the Conseil national de la résistance. A legendary item.